


Come Home To Me

by crestedcurls (Spacy)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff to Angst, M/M, sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacy/pseuds/crestedcurls
Summary: A bitter old soldier won't give up, even with a shotgun aimed at his head.





	Come Home To Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commissioned piece for IdiotCrusader on Tumblr. For more of my work, find me at crestedcurls.tumblr.com! Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Los Muertos was a plague on the small town of Dorado. They had intercepted several weapons shipments and had used them to terrorize tourists and extort protection money from local businesses among other crimes. Their spree of violence had gone unchecked by the officials who were spread too thin to deal with the threat. It required an outside set of skills. 

The vigilant had moved quickly after the first reports came in, moving from his search in Canada for answers to the warm streets of Mexico. After renting out a small hotel room--paid in cash, under a false name--he began his search, following the movements of the criminals. There was one skirmish involving a little girl and a grenade, but nothing had come of. He was simply left with some new bruises and the girl’s voice, ringing in his ears: 'You’re one of those heroes, aren’t you?'

He was no hero. Not anymore. 

76 geared up for another assault. This time, he would be ready for them. A shipment was being moved and he needed to get ahead of it before the weapons could be used to hurt more. Oh, how he claimed he didn’t care, that he worked solely for himself and his own interests, but that was a damn lie to himself. 76 cared about every person who his actions saved. Which is exactly why he was here, and why the weapons needed to be stopped. 

Into the darkness he moved, using only the glow of the visor to define the world. Los Muertos was not a quiet gang and he could hear the laughter of the grunts loading the expensive tools of war into crates before moving them onto the transport. Rapid fire Spanish echoed down the alley, a joke before sharp, barking laughs. Serious tones took over, and something about the guns were mentioned--god, 76 wished he remembered more Spanish. Despite his itchiness to head into the firefight, his training stayed his hand, forcing him to remain down the alley, out of view. 

After minutes passed, his patience was rewarded and 76 was able to gain a better understanding of what opposed him. A team of gangbangers, armed with heavy weapons and perhaps a little too much of whatever drug had hit the market recently. Without taking his eyes off the scene, he took stock of his weapons--a couple of biotic canisters, several extra pulse clips, and a Beretta strapped to the outside of his thigh. 

This was doable. 

His inventory stocked and prepared, 76 waited for another minute, listening to their movements. His restraint was rewarded in the form of one of the scouts stumbling slowly down the alley that hid 76--it was go time. 

Soldier 76 moved all at once, appearing from the shadows to grab the scrawny man by the jaw and slam his face against the wall, hearing the bones in his jaw and cheeks crack under the pressure. 76 didn’t stop to listen to his screams, climbing up the nearby fire escape before the fallen criminal’s friends could investigate too closely. 

Three of the gangbangers moved into the dark alley, toting oversized weapons that even an experienced 76 regarded as lethal. Once they were below him, 76 dropped from the rusty metal, already firing his pulse rifle. The three barely had time to make a noise before high-powered shots slammed into their bodies and they fell to the ground.

Bullets peppered the ground around his feet, hardly missing the worn boots as 76 threw himself to the side. At the entrance of the alley, a man stood with a large minigun, and it was already spinning up for another onslaught, sure to shred the little cover that the vigilant had managed. Quick thinking led Jack to the fallen man that had originally tested his luck, and the belt of grenades slung so casually around his chest. 

Grab, pop, throw and go. 

He didn’t even look at the bomb hit the ground, blowing up the man with the impressive weapon and another who had been approaching as backup of sorts, toting additional ammunition for the gun.

That left only two more lackies and the two big guys who seemed to be calling the shots at the moment; Unsurprisingly, they remained back by the shipment in order to protect their precious stolen goods. 

Turning, 76 barely had time to raise his rifle again before a bullet sliced through the skin of his right shoulder, cutting it in two down to the bone. With a grunt and a gasp of pain, he raised the pulse rifle with his non-dominant hand, feeling the pull of skin and muscle, and blindly sprayed the alley, connecting with the taller of the two lackies and dropping him beside his fallen friends. The clip was now empty and one arm was solidly out of commission, but he had managed to cut down the crew that much more. 

As the final underling advanced down the death-ridden alley, looking nervous, 76 cast aside his precious rifle in favor of the pistol strapped to his thigh. A full clip and the practiced ability to reload with one hand made for a better close-quarters weapons. The brute had three bullets emptied into him, killing him instantly. Rapid Spanish filled the air, the remaining few gang members growing concerned for their friends who had met their fate in the narrow alley. 

76 rounded the corner to a hail of curses and bullets. Languages were never really his thing--there was no need for a foreign language in the fields of Indiana--but 76 managed to pick up on a few of the phrases from his time with--No, no. No distractions. His friend was gone, he wasn’t worth 76 losing his life over too.   
Dodging behind a pile of trash and old broken boxes, 76 let a curse slip from him. Jesus, he was too old for this anymore. How long could this firefight go on before someone gave up? Before everyone was dead? Before even he was running on total empty? It had been days since he had slept soundly, and the meager meals he had managed made it difficult to feed his super-soldier metabolism. Could he really keep this up?

The next second found him rolling forward, spraying bullets as fast as his sidearm would fire. One nailed its target but the others missed widely. 76 cursed the injured arm for his failure. 

Almost in slow motion, 76 watched the large rifle nestle against the shoulder of the brute, watched him take aim and fire. Then, pain, raw and visceral, exploded in his left shoulder. Two more of the shots connected with 76’s legs, one with his stomach. 

Soldier 76 let out a scream as he hit the ground. 

Despair began to replace that resilient, bitter flame of hope that he had managed to keep kindled since the explosion. Now, death lurking at the corners of his eyes in an inky black smog that threatened to choke him. Bitter and unyielding, the soldier stayed on his knees, trying and failing to rise to his feet once again. Sensors in the visor picked out the backs of the escaping targets as they sped off through the streets with the stolen weapons. He failed to protect himself or the streets. He had failed the mission, failed the objective. 76 had lost. 

God damn it.

The old soldier felt a tear slip down his face. That little girl, the shopkeepers, the homeowners, they were all relying on him to clear this evil out, to extinguish the crime spree that put all of their lives at risk. And now he was bleeding out in several places. Instinct told him to reach for a dwindling biotic canister, but exhaustion stayed his hand. Maybe it was his time. Maybe he could finally rest, and be done with all of this bullshit. 76 had been fighting it for so long, but now he was stuck. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Even Reaper, his ultimate adversary, had vanished like the ghost he was. And now 76 couldn’t even defeat a small gang in Mexico. 

'Pathetic.' He could hear the voice of his old commander from the army screaming at him in his ear. 'The mission’s not over until you get your guy.'

“The mission was long over,” 76 argued with the dead man in his head. “I failed, and my family paid the price. Let me rest.”

'The mission’s not over until you get your guy. Reaper’s still out there. Go finish this.'

Maybe it was the voice of the man who changed his life, who had saved him from a life on a dusty farm that had 76 reaching tiredly for one of the biotic canisters. Maybe it was just angry old spite and a need to finish something, anything, before he dies. Maybe it was just because he was too lazy to let himself bleed out and ultimately too scared to pull the trigger himself. Hell, who knows if the serum would even let him die then? No, it was much better to remain on his feet, even for a bit longer. 

But his hand never made it to the small canisters at his hip, interrupted instead by the sensation of a shotgun resting against the back of his head. 76 didn’t move any further, just froze as much as the injury in his arms would allow him to. Looks like Death had found him in more ways than one.

“Soldier 76.” That ruined voice rasped at him. 

“Reaper.”

“Didn’t think I’d find you cleaning up the trash in Méjico.”

“I figured you needed a break from me chasing you. But I guess you ended up chasing me anyway.” 76 bit back a grunt as more blood leaked from him. It had struck him that the old CO was right, he didn’t want to die, not yet, not like this. One hand creeped further toward the the canisters, hoping that Reaper might take this small mercy for him. “Can I just--”

The shotgun pressed harder against his skull, grinding into the bone. “I don’t think so.” 

76 began to grow angry with the arrangement. It wasn’t meant to be like this; they were meant to meet on fair fields, faced off in a duel to a death. Not Reaper preparing to murder him, execution style. Twisting to look up at him, 76’s lips twisted up in a scowl; not that Reaper could see behind that mask, but the emotion was still there, clear in his voice. “Either kill me or tell me what you want, asshole.” 

Behind the porcelain mask of his own, Reaper’s face gathered into a snarl as well. How dare he talked to him like this, this disrespectful little sh--

76’s face blanched, the blood loss making itself known. Screw the gun to his forehead, he was going for the canisters. And to his surprise, Reaper held his trigger finger. The crimson hands cracked the tube and bathed both of them in a golden hue, beginning to erase many of the fresh wounds and repleting his energy some.

The vigilant now distracted by the sudden relief and with dark eyes obscured by the hooked visage of the owl mask, Reaper gazed over the body that seemed so familiar. Stolen intel had referenced the fact that 76 may be the hero of before, the golden boy immortalized in a permanent statue. Funny how permanence had no place anymore. But here, now… Reaper’s suspicion had been confirmed. This was him, this is the man he once protected and cared for, a partner he had once loved. Once upon a time...

The gun against his head seemed to waver for a second. 76 glanced sharply up at the man, confused as the deadly weapon slipped from his forehead and back into a cloud of smoke. What was even more concerning than was watching the shadowy form fall to his knees facing 76, bowing his head in what seemed like a sorrowful gesture. 

“I’m so sorry, Jack.” The rasp was less pronounced, the words more familiar this time. 

76 pulled back sharply, confusion lacing his brow. That voice…

“G-gabe?” He reached out toward the man, hands wrapping around his shoulders--The texture was bizarre, solid, but wispy around the edges.. “Gabriel Reyes?” 

The hooded form nodded. “It’s me, Jack.”

“You’re a-alive.” Jack managed out, wounds still making it hard to focus. “What… what happened to you?” 

Alarmed at the blood that refused to cease, Gabe chose to dodge that question in favor of wrapping himself around Jack, supporting his battered body. “C’mon, Jack, let’s get you safe.”

…

Jack was set carefully on the bed of the dingy motel room. The former strike commander enjoyed the security of the streets, of being anonymous, but nothing could beat a hot shower and a semi-decent bed and for as long as he planned on staying in Dorado, having both was a advantage to his cause. 

He had fallen asleep as Gabe carried him back. Perhaps the blood loss was greater than he thought, or the day’s emotions were just too strong. Either way, Jack dropped off shortly after Gabe had scooped him up in those all-too-familiar broad arms. At the sensation of being set down into the cool sheets of his hotel bed, Jack slowly cracked his faded blue eyes. From behind the red visor, Gabe was regarded with suspicious eyes as the wraith bustled around, pulling the first aid kit and a glass of water from the small bathroom. 

Jack tried yanking the kit from the figure and insisting on doing it himself. Gabe couldn’t be trusted, not yet, and Jack was always the better medic of the two. But that wasn’t obvious by looking at Jack; he was tired, drained, and the boring eyes of Gabe didn’t help the crooked stitches and the gentle stabs with the tools that were meant to help, not harm. Where was Mercy when you needed her?

“Let me help you, Jack.” 

“I don’t need your damn help.” 

But nothing deterred Gabe as he settled down next to a wounded Jack. Something about this felt more familiar than either one of them would have liked to admit, but neither one commented on the eerie similarity to the past years. Jack watched him carefully as Gabe pulled out a knife, designed to cut away the ruined fabric of his pants. While he was aware of what Gabe’s goals were, it didn’t make the sensation of his enemy brandishing a weapon over his form any easier. 

Gabe ignored the way that Jack reached automatically for the comforting feeling of the now-missing sidearm. Jack’s weapons had been collected by the wraith, sitting in a pile in the corner to be cleaned and fixed up, and to avoid Jack shooting him. He’d get the weapons back, later. For now, Gabe set to the gruesome job of slowly cutting away the ruined material, revealing the two major holes in Jack’s legs. Blood still leaked weakly from the bullet wounds, forcing Gabe into action before he could help with the rest of the battered soldier. 

With the help of a set of tweezers and some sterile thread, Gabe was able to remove the bullets and close the wounds. Jack’s face had gone ashen silently, as he faded in and out of consciousness. The super soldier never attempted to escape. Healing needed to happen and honestly? It was nice to have someone else taking care of him. 

Once satisfied that the injuries in Jack’s legs would heal, Gabe moved up to unzip that gaudy leather jacket with 76 depicted on the broad shoulders. Internally, he reminded himself to tease Jack about the ridiculous call sign later, after the danger was removed. Jack’s eyes flashed open behind the visor, but the man was too weak to fight Gabe off; He’d just have to have faith that he was here to help, not to harm.

And slowly, the old soldier was patched together again. Once satisfied that Jack wasn’t going to bleed out from the major injuries, Gabe cracked one of the biotic canisters in order to clean up some of the smaller scratches and bruises while Jack napped. Reassured that the vigilante would survive the night, Gabriel got up, gathering a small spread of snacks for the two and booted up the old TV to play some old novella while Reaper attempt to rest.

“Gabe?” Came the weak voice from beside him as he settled back into the bed. “What happened to you?”

“I was in the explosion. That witch Moira had been playing around with some of these nanites. Gave ‘em to me before a major mission in Dubai. Been using them since, but after the explosion--” Gabe remembered it bitterly, body burned and crushed under a piece of the Overwatch logo. He recalled the blood pooling in his mouth, in his shoulder, pain sparking from every nerve. Gabe desperately screaming, trying to get his hands to turn to wisps in order to free himself. It was only as he felt the life fading from him that Gabe’s entire body had splintered into pieces and escaped the embrace of twisted metal and concrete. He had never been able to maintain the same body again, too ruined to get every piece back where it should be. Now he was just some grotesque husk of a man once was, an abomination of humanity and death.

Shaking himself, he returned to the conversation at hand. “I was scattered into pieces after something fell on me. I’ve been piecing myself back together since but… It hurts. And I can never maintain it for long. I can never really go back to the way I was.” Gabe finally managed out the truths that had locked themselves away in his head for so long. “What happened to you, after the explosion?” 

Jack laughed, a bitter, soulless laugh that hurt his stomach. “Everything. I was a mess. I just ran, Gabe. I just fucking ran. Been surviving, running, since. Trying to figure out what happened, but it’s just not there yet. I’m missing something and I have no idea what.”

Gabe nodded; he knew the feeling. Thankfully, Jack hadn’t mentioned anything about Gabe’s own viglianting, about the masked figure only known as Reaper. Gabe was scared to go back, scared to show what was left of the once powerful Blackwatch commander. He had signed on with Talon, if only to have O’Deorain there to maintenance the nanites. Since joining, Gabe had hidden behind the mask and cloak to prevent his identity from getting out. Anonymity was his protection. 

Glancing over at him, the former Blackwatch Commander opened his mouth, just to close it again. A smear of red on Jack had caught his eye, something missed earlier. The large gash began just above his eyebrow and disappeared downward in a slant over his nose. “Jack, your face--!” Gabe reached out, claws moving slowly to Jack’s face, but the vigilant jerked away before he could touch him. 

“Don’t touch it.” His voice was grim as he shifted away on the bed, carefully. Shit. That broken glass behind the boxes; he was too preoccupied by the gunshots at the time, the pain hadn’t registered. And now Gabe wanted to take the mask. 

Jack had never told anyone about the poor eyesight that plagued him after the explosion; the smoke and bits of glass had shredded his corneas, rendering him completely blind at the time. The sight had returned somewhat, over the years, but everything remained blurry, colorful shapes. The only thing that helped was the red visor, stolen from a locker in a long-forgotten Overwatch base. It had been made for him years ago, in case of a hands-free mission, but now provided his aid in day-to-day activities. Very rarely did the man go without it anymore, and never in the presence of others. Especially not Gabe. 

Gabe sat up, brow furrowing under his own mask. Self-esteem issues plagued him too--a face that never seemed to be solid greeted him when he lifted up his own mask. It was a mockery of what he once was--handsome, with a strong jawline and a broad nose ever-so-crooked from the years of abuse that he endured in the military. Now, it was a mish-mash of a dead man reanimated, a travesty of who he was before.

It took concentration to keep his face together. Tiny wisps of inky black smoke billowed from it, the nanites keeping him alive burning off and regenerating at rates faster than he could keep track off. Without focusing, his face could be engulfed by the inky smoke, ruining his features and turning him into stuff of nightmares. A fair amount of mirrors had been broken over the new look. And so, the man devised his own disguise. A harbinger of death, someone to seek out the guilty and enact as judge, juror and executioner. It was a mission to hell paved with good intentions. After a while, Gabe lost sight of who was the good guy and who was the bad. And now he was just the Reaper, angry and lost, wandering the streets in search of a clue to his past life and what happened to Overwatch. 

Gabe sucked in a breath, watching Jack carefully through the slits in the porcelain mask. It was obvious that the idea of being without his mask in front of Gabe made him uncomfortable, so it was up to Gabe change that. Clawed gloves rested over Jack’s hands, gently guiding them to his own white mask. Trust starts somewhere, and Gabe was willing to extend that olive branch. 

“Are you sure?” Was Jack… concerned?

The pointed chin dipped down in a nod. It was time. Together, the old partners removed the owlish mask and set it aside.

At first, the space behind the mask was blank, a wall of inky darkness that resembled nothing that Jack had ever seen. After a couple of beats, though, Gabe’s face slowly began to solidify in the darkness. Smoke dripped from mounding nostrils as the blackness hardened to form tired eyes and a sagged face. Gabe released Jack’s hand, resisting the urge to hide himself from view. 

Jack resisted the urge to pull back. The face was seemingly intact, but whatever lurked behind it was a smoky mess, wisping out from behind the hood to create a ghost-like effect. It was as monstrous as it was familiar--a hard jaw, peeking out from the elements, the half-curve of his lips into an amused smile, a richness deep within the man’s eyes. Jack had been in love with him since their days in the SEP but it was only after their promotions that his desperate pinnings had been realized.

In the back of his head, Jack remembered the first time they kissed; in his office, after Gabe had gotten back from a particularly dangerous mission. After weeks spent in the infirmary, Gabe had shown up with that infuriating half-smile and Jack found himself pinning him up against the wall, taking his lips angrily, hands roaming an injured body. It was only after a few minutes of kissing that they had broken apart, gasping and laughing.

Gabe had loved him. 

In a way, Jack still loved him. 

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad, huh.” Gabe interrupted Jack’s thoughts with a bitter laugh, running rampant of those hours spent in his office together. “Kids call me a monster. Maybe I am.” 

Jack reached out with one hand, almost nervously. Red leather brushed against Gabe’s face as the long fingers of the super soldier curled around his jaw, resting his thumb on his nose and gently rubbing it. Though the mask could help him view, this was a better way to see. Gabe was alive. Hidden by his own visor, Jack began to weep, tears filling ruined eyes and dripping down a hooked nose to collect somewhere below his view. 

“Easy, Jackie, I’ll put it back on. I know.” Gabe had cried, too, when he first saw himself. Or at least tried to. He couldn’t distinguish between tears and smoke anymore. 

“N-no. Leave it off.” Came the command, thick in his throat. “I love it like this, love you like this.” His thumb rubbed carefully over Gabe’s face, mapping it out--as if it was impossible for Jack to have forgotten it in the first place. Jack spent the next minutes taking in his face, the scars and changes it had underwent since they had last seen each other, so many years ago. 

After the moment had past and Gabe had shifted under Jack’s hands--clearly uncomfortable at the attention--Jack removed his hand. It was time for Jack to reciprocate the man’s trust and allow him to work on the gash that laced his own face. 

With a similar nod, Jack indicated that he was ready for the removal of the visor. The claws came up to rest against the red glass, ready to catch it, as Jack reached back to undo the clasp that attached it to his face. With a click, it came undone and rested in Gabe’s hand for a moment, before he pulled it away from 76’s face and set it to the side of them, next to his own mask. 

Milky blue eyes didn’t look up at Gabe. His face had been ruined by the explosion, debris burying itself in the soft flesh of his head and neck. Jack still remembering the metal pole that swung down, slicing his face in two as he pulled desperately at the rubble pinning him to the ground. Blood had blinded him, spilled into his mouth, choked him out. He had panicked, screaming and sobbing, but the oppressive darkness refused to respond, didn’t help him. Just miles and miles of crushed concrete, blood, that damn blue jacket… 

He shook himself, bringing himself from the nightmares of the past that had left him with years of claustrophobia and blindness. Without the visor, Jack only had vague, colorful shapes to define his world; to go without it was a nightmare, but Gabe was right, he needed to clean the wound. Yet another scar slashed into his face--so handsome, in his youth--that would need to be cleaned up. Usually, he’d do it himself, cleaning the blood from his gear and stitching up the ruined skin by feel alone; But this time, smooth hands came up to brush against his face, making him jump nervously.   
“Be calm, Jack. I’m not going to hurt you.” Gabe had removed his clawed gloves, revealing hands that certainly looked like his, but were too frighteningly flawless to be his. The nanites had forgotten the calluses and scars from years spent fighting, leaving only cold, too-soft skin. Knuckles brushed against Jack’s cheekbone, remembering the exact moment when he fell in love with his SEP partner. 

It was just after they were deemed successes by the SEP scientists. Gabe and Jack had been deployed on a mission somewhere in South Asia to take care of a small group of insurgents who had been kidnapping and executing the local people there. Jack had volunteered to be some kind of distraction while Gabe had snuck around the back to successfully free some of the kidnapped. But before long, they had caught onto the trick and grabbed the nearest person, a girl no older than fifteen, and placed a gun to her head. Jack had volunteered himself, traded his life for the girl’s, and it was in that moment that Gabe got the satisfaction of putting a bullet through the insurgent’s head. It was also in that moment that he realized he was falling stupidly in love with the wide-eyed golden boy from Indiana of all places. 

Gabe retrieved the first aid pack, practiced fingers wiping away the dried blood and removing the contaminants from the gash. The needle was strung and the ruined skin was pulled back together. 

So far, Gabe hadn’t guessed the man’s weakness, but Jack wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t soon. Jack was a twitchy mess, jumping slightly every time the creeping hands brushed against his face. Between his inability to see more than a cloudy shape near his eyes, and the fact that Gabe was Reaper, the current bane of his existence, Jack wanted nothing more than to sink through the bed and disappear. The pain of the needle barely registered; the old soldier was too distracted by his thoughts to even think about the minor prick against war-leathered skin. 

Azure eyes finally looked up at Gabe shortly after he finished with the stitches. There was a pause as Gabe’s gaze devoured the man’s face, taking in each scar and bump, seeing the stories of the years between the explosion and now, the pain and weariness lurking just behind a carefully-constructed wall. But his eyes--there was something wrong. They weren’t the bright blue that took away Gabe’s breath as a young commander, the ones who burned memories in his brain of tired nights looking blankly over war plans, of weeks spent on the battlefield, serious and angry, of the time spent together when Gabe tried to teach Jack how to dance and then they were laughing and falling over each other, rough lips embracing each other in the early hours of the morning where nothing could touch them for those ten minutes--

“What happened to you?” Gabe finally managed out, around the torrent of memories that washed over him. 

“War. What else?” Jack had been rasping like that since the explosion, doing everything he could to hide his identity. Today, he’s just Soldier: 76. He couldn’t go back to Jack Morrison even if he wanted. “Things have changed since we last saw each other.” Quietly, he prayed that Gabe didn’t see the way he tried to lean away, to hide his face. 

“Jackie.” Gabe caught his chin and pulled his face back toward him. “Are you--the explosion… Are you blind, Jack?”

There was a long pause. Jack closed his eyes and released a long breath. If he didn’t talk about it, if he didn’t acknowledge it, then it wasn’t true, it didn’t happen. But here came Gabe, destroying those foundations. Shit.

He didn’t realize, the one small tear that leaked from his ruined eyes. Jack hadn’t cried since the explosion, since extracting himself and turning his back on everything that he helped to build since he was a young adult. The crystalline drop fell from him, falling onto the blanket below. More followed it, just silently slipping from the closed eyes. 

Gabe sat and watched the display for a couple of seconds before gently scooting forward and wrapping his hands around the man’s jaw and cheek. Jack didn’t fight him for the first time since they met. Ghostly hands, dripping in smoke, brushed over his nose, wiping away the tears, catching Jack as he leaned forward into the man’s hands. And just like that, Jack lost himself in the arms of the man he once loved, quietly crying with their foreheads pressed together. 

They stayed like that, two old soldiers pressed together, holding each other through the horrors of the world once again. They were the seawall in the storm, standing strong together, finding faith within each other, weathering everything the world had to beat them down with. Nothing could touch either of them now.

Jack was the one to pull away and carefully wipe the rest of tears away. Cloudy eyes opened again and he could almost detect a smile where Gabe’s lips should be. 

“I missed you, Jack Francis Morrison.” 

Jack snorted at the use of his middle name. Gabe was the only one, aside from the legal documentation, who knew his full name. A name that he had left behind in Indiana, on a farm in the middle of dusty nowhere, where he wanted nothing more than to escape. Now, the only thing he wanted was to go home, but he wasn’t sure where home even was anymore.

“Ya know, Gabe, you never told me what your middle name was.” Jack laughed a bit, moving past the tender moments of before. 

“Don’t have one.” The man shrugged, laughing with him. “Parents never gave me one.”

Jack slowly fell silent, the laughter disappearing from his face as the stitches pulled uncomfortably. “I’m not totally blind. Can see alright with the mask, but when I take it off…” A hand waved in front of his face. “It’s all gone. Just blurry shapes and colors.”

Gabe sat quietly next to him, introspecting, before slowly taking the vigilant’s hands. Jack tensed but didn’t pull away, moving forward with Gabe. Gabe carefully placed Jack’s hands on his chest before letting go, allowing Jack to feel him, to feel the sensation of his body disintegrating and repairing constantly. It took effort for him to maintain the shape of Gabriel; the nanites wanted to simply fall apart into a ghost-like matter, but for now, Gabe would keep the energy up to allow the man to feel him, feel what happened to him. 

Jack pulled back a bit, shocked to find the man’s body thrumming beneath his hands. Jack had been with Gabe long enough to understand the full extent of what the super soldier bodies could do, but this was… too much. Frighteningly too much. It felt like there was a buzz of a current, throbbing beneath his touch. 

“I’m a monster, Jack.” 

“You’re my monster, Gabe.” A wry smirk touched scarred lips. “I still can’t believe you lived.”

“I wasn’t supposed to. It was everything that Moira did, that witch. Suppose I could thank her, but this life isn’t worth thanking her over.” 

The pair fell silent, thinking about what could have been, where they were in life now, and what’s to happen next. Jack would need more help than this, and his face still had to heal before he could go back out there. Gabe wasn’t welcome back with Overwatch, he figured, so the world awaited; after all those who caused the fall of Overwatch were still out there, and they still needed to be punished for what happened. 

There was a sound next to him--Jack had fallen asleep. The day’s trauma had finally caught up with him. His body, though super, had faced enough trauma that just the act of relaxing was enough to push him over the edge into unconsciousness. 

Gabe laughed in his smoky way and settled in next to him. The old ghost didn’t need to sleep anymore, but it was nice to play the illusion. 

…

Gabe was up before him, having never gone to sleep. Not to be fooled by Jack’s tricks, though, he snatched the mask up from the bedside table, to prevent him from stealing out and leaving while Gabe was making some kind of food.

 

Minutes later, the sound of panic pulled him from the hot plate where eggs were cooking. Jack was on his feet, hands darting wildly around for his mask, for his only sense of vision that he had left anymore, that was clutched loosely in Gabe’s left hand. Unknowing of where he was in those few seconds, Jack snatched up his rifle from where it had been left, and pointed it squarely at Gabe. 

“Where is it?!” There was a mess of red in Gabe’s hand, that could have been the mask. He considered diving for it, but Gabe would react too fast. If only Jack could see.

“Easy Jackie, easy. It’s right here.” Gabe lifted the mask, with the other hand outstretched slowly reaching for the barrel of the impressive weapon. Once he managed to point it toward the ground, Gabe handed Jack the mask back. Even the sensation of snapping the mask back into place relaxed the man some; Gabe was thrown into sharp relief against the light, and Jack felt himself soothed. The gun was replaced on the bed and Jack slowly moved forward, investigating what Gabe was making. 

“Why’d you take it?” He asked warily, following the ghost-like shape into the other room. 

“I didn’t want you to leave on me; we have to talk about what happens next, after all. And you’re notoriously slippery, Jack.” 

“Ha! I always was the sneakier of the two of us.” The joke was light, a stress reliever of sorts.

At that, Gabe laughed out loud. “I was the one leading a covert strike team under cover of darkness and media blackout, and you had a goddamn statue. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

The pair sat down to the eggs that would soon go cold. Neither one of them needed to eat much. For Jack, it meant going without the mask for even longer in order to eat, and that was out of the question for now. His sight was too important for that. But for now, the pair just sat over the quaint breakfast and continued their conversation, desperately yearning for some semblance of normalcy in a world wracked by war and anger.

“What happens next, Jack?” Gabe asked, sipping quietly at his coffee. Unlike Jack, Gabe didn’t mind going without his mask, so long he managed to avoid any reflective surfaces. Watching himself constantly disintegrate and regenerante was not his idea of a good time.

“I don’t know, honestly. Overwatch wants me back, wants us all back. Talon’s been getting too close, and Winston’s already faced them down twice. But at the same time, I don’t know if I can give up all of this.” Jack waved vaguely at the air around him, talking about his current profession of faceless heroism. If he were to step back into the eye of the world--even illegally, as the current Overwatch state was--Jack would be forced back into control, forced to take the helm of a sinking ship. That is, of course, if he revealed his identity. For now, Jack Morrison was enjoying the freedom that being dead gave to him. The thought of losing it scared the hell out of him. 

“Heh, yeah. The monkey was always faster than I took him for.” Gabe mumbled softly with a small smirk. “I didn’t want to hurt him. He got in my way, everytime. If he just let me get past him, let me in, I would have taken the information I needed and been on my way.” At Jack’s questioning look, Gabe took another sip of his coffee. “I work independently of Talon. Sure, I work for them occasionally, as a contractor of sorts. Help them get what they need, while they help repair me when the nanites can’t. It’s a trade of power. they don’t have anything on me that I don’t want them to have.”

Jack nodded, quiet for a moment. He was thankful for the return of the mask, so his expression remained anonymous. “I want to go home, Gabi.” 

“Me too, Jackie. I miss them.”

“I wonder if they’d accept a couple of old soldiers.” 

“Something tells me they’ll take all the help they can get, even from a dead man and a ghost.”

…

And so they had began their journey back north, to where Overwatch was starting their roots again in the scorched Earth of where the former organization used to tower. Stops came along the way--raids on Talon bases, sidetracked days where they’d hunt down small cells of terrorists and gangs, helping the odd family in crisis, but they always trekked north. Something about it seemed so right; sleeping by day, moving under the cover of darkness at night, but being together and whole and right again.

There’s a Greek myth that humans used to come in pairs, with four arms and legs. Fearing their power, Zeus split these humans in two, dooming them to travel the world, constantly searching for their other half, their soulmate. And though Jack was no longer a religious man, he could understand the myth. He had found his other half. 

Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes were whole again.


End file.
